As of 2014, the organisation took in about $2.5 million (£1.75 million) annually, roughly 75 percent of that coming from grants from US government institutions such as Radio Free Asia and the State Department.

Shari Steele, the new head of the Tor Project, told Ars recently that the organization wants to diversify its funding and, over time, become less reliant on government sources of income. "I can't deny that there are lots of people within the Tor community and lots of people who either are users of Tor or would be users of Tor who are concerned about the fact that so much of the money—or any of the money—is coming from US government sources," she said.

"But the reality is that is where the money is coming from. And the organization needs money in order to survive. So we're going to take this step by step and try to expand the funding sources and then there might be conversation about how we do things. But we're very, very grateful for our current funding sources."